ThePastisHaunted,theFutureLaced
by AquarianStars
Summary: “Wait,” says Nat. Steve looks at her, waiting for her to speak. She’s thinking, quickly running through scenarios, logistics, what-ifs... yes, her slight adjustment would make a better plan than their current one. “Clint, you should go with Tony and Scott,” she says. “Steve, come with me.” Endgame, slightly adjusted...


_Neither the characters nor the title of this story are owned by me. The plot line, although much improved by me, is not mine either. Enjoy!_

_~~~_

They're arguing. Tony, Clint, Steve, Rhodey, various others jumping in at different points. They're the Avengers, so Nat's not exactly surprised.

It's been about an hour and a half since the conversation started: who should go where, who should go when, and who should go with who. Time travel is risky, dangerous even; Scott has drilled that into their heads time and time again and no decision is to be made—or taken—too lightly. Nat sits back and watches the groups form, then dissipate again and again as they decide whose strengths are best suited to various destinations at given times—and to one another.

"Okay, so we've decided something, at least," Tony drawls, raising his voice so as to quiet the others. "Thor, you're taking Ranger Rick over there to Asgard, 2015, where your old flame is chilling out with the reality stone inside her." Tony smirks, as if laughing at his own private joke.

"Yes." Thor sits in a corner alone, shades on, arms crossed. He breaks Nat's heart; those five years were not kind to him. He's hurting, still, but Nat can't help him if he won't accept it.

"Tony, Steve, Bruce, and me are going to New York, 2012," says Scott. "Bruce'll look into the time stone, and the rest of us—"

"We'll focus on the rest. Thanks, Ant-Guy," Tony interrupts.

If looks could kill, Tony Stark would be dead on the floor. Ant-Man, thinks Nat. It's Ant-Man.

"Rhodey and Nebula will be going to Morag in 2014 to retrieve the Power Stone before Peter Quill finds it," says Steve, quickly. "And that leaves Clint and Natasha, who are going to piggyback off of them to get to Vormir. They'll get the Soul Stone. Same year. Is that right, Nebula?"

Nebula nods, once, sharply.

"Is everyone good with this? Are we missing anyone?" Steve asks. Murmured agreement around the room.

"Okay, good," says Steve. "Now—"

"Wait," says Nat. Steve looks at her, waiting for her to speak. She's thinking, quickly running through scenarios, logistics, what-ifs... yes, her slight adjustment would make a better plan than their current one. Clint may not like it, but she thinks Steve will understand.

"Clint, you should go with Tony and Scott," says Nat.

"What? Why?" asks Clint.

She glances at Steve, sees confusion at first, then understanding. "As is, we're sending two unenhanced humans alone to a foreign planet, not knowing at all what to expect," explains Nat. "If I take Steve, we'll probably have a better shot at surviving, and Clint, you know the enemy better back in 2012."

Clint doesn't look happy about Nat's reminder, but he nods anyway.

"So that's it then? Everyone in agreement?" Tony glances around, daring anyone else to challenge. No one does. "Good. See everyone in the atrium in an hour. Be ready."

~~~

Nebula pulls Nat and Steve aside after the meeting breaks up.

"I know nothing of Vormir," she tells them, "and I do not want to upset the others needlessly. That being said, my father and my sister went to Vormir to retrieve the Soul Stone five years ago. My father returned with the stone—and without my sister. I do not know what happened, but you must be prepared for the worst. Do what you must to get that stone."

Nat and Steve exchange a glance. "Thank you," says Nat.

Nebula breezes between them without another word.

"She's... odd," says Nat.

"She's blue and she's a cyborg," says Steve, "and you think her personality is odd?"

"Nice use of modern words, Steve," Nat laughs. "'Cyborg.' Wow."

Steve rolls his eyes and walks back toward his room. "Eleven years, Romanov," he calls over his shoulder.

~~~

Traveling through the quantum realm is like nothing Nat has ever experienced. It's every bit as beautiful as her home country, and every bit as dangerous as it made her.

She follows the signals that her suit gives her, and slowly, they break apart from the main group to get to their various destinations. She is left with Steve, Rhodey, and Nebula when they arrive on Morag. Nebula makes quick work of poor Peter Quill and his ship. She programs it and explains to Nat and Steve that all they have to do is sit and not touch anything.

"What's the backup plan if something goes wrong?" asks Steve.

"Nothing will go wrong," answers Nebula. "Not on my part, anyway." She turns her back to them, clearly saying that this conversation is over.

Rhodey shrugs and wishes them best of luck. Nat hugs him tightly. Steve shakes his hand.

They board Peter Quill's ship, and Nat prays to the universe that she'll see her friends again.

~~~

"He means a lot to me," says Nat, about twenty minutes into the trip.

"Hmm? Who?" Steve has been staring, openmouthed, at the galaxies they're passing on the way to Vormir. He'd never even dreamed this was possible, back when he was sketching stars in his notebook and staring out at the night sky from his fire escape. And Nat admits, it's breathtaking.

"Rhodey," she responds. "He, Okoye, Carol, even Nebula. They had my back those five years, when everyone else left me. Not that I blame them." She laughs, and even to her she sounds pitiful. "Bruce, Tony, Thor, they had other obligations, or so they said. Clint..." she trails off. That one hurt. She'd tracked him all those five years, followed his awful killing sprees, constantly attempted contact, but was always met with radio silence. "Well," she continues, "I think my not wanting Clint to come with me speaks for itself."

Steve nods slightly.

"Even you couldn't be around all the time," she adds. "I was alone in that goddamn compound for so long. I would have gone crazy if Rhodey wasn't constantly on call."

The silence stretches for several moments before Steve responds: "I'm so sorry, Nat. I should have hung around the complex more. I knew you were hurting, and I just couldn't pull myself away."

"No, Steve! Oh god, I'm not blaming you at all. Without you, we'd still be back where we were, sitting on our asses and trying to do damage control."

Steve laughs. "And even then, what I found was just dumb luck."

"No, what you found was five years worth of hard work and chasing leads." Nat remembers that day—a few months ago, now—that Steve came knocking on the front door with an old but familiar face: Scott Lang. He told her he'd been following a lead that had brought him to a storage facility in San Fransisco, where he'd found Scott's abandoned van. He'd searched it three times over and came up with nothing. Steve was sitting, dejected and hopeless in the front seat, playing with knobs and switches and dials on a strange looking device on the dashboard, and something had happened. The van started to shake and light up like the Fourth of July, and suddenly a machine in the back has spit Scott out. Steve brought him to Nat at the compound.

Scott explained to them about the quantum realm and time travel, and the rest is history.

"Steve, the rest of us had given up. You hadn't, and you're the reason there's still hope," says Nat.

Steve shifts in his seat. "I know. I'm just sorry that we—that I—wasn't there for you when you needed me."

"You stopped by when you could." Nat shrugs. "That's more than I can say for some people."

That earns a smile out of Steve. He knows who she's talking about.

"Tony Stark," he muses.

"A man of many faces," says Nat, smiling.

Steve scoffs. "'Many faces.' He's only got two faces, the son of a bitch."

"Now Steve, that's not nice," chides Nat.

Steve's face becomes thoughtful. "In all seriousness, he scares me sometimes, Nat," he says. "The guy's a genius, and he can't be controlled. He can't be put in check. He could obliterate half the earth in the blink of an eye, and no one could—or would—stop him because he's got everyone in his pocket."

"Then its a good thing he's on our side."

"Is he?"

"If we do things his way, yes."

"I can't trust the guy, Nat. He's so... entitled. I can't get that stuff from all those years ago out of my head. He said we should have gone through with Ultron, with Project Insight, with everything wrong with S.H.E.I.L.D. And I have no doubt he would have done it, too."

Nat laughs, although there's nothing even remotely funny about what Steve said. "He built the ships for Project Insight, didn't be? I sometimes do wonder, if Hydra had gotten to him first..."

"No," says Steve. "No way! The guy's a dick, but he's not... he wouldn't..." Steve trails off. He sees it, and now Nat regrets opening her mouth about it.

"He's just a dick," continues Steve, "And even though I don't love the guy, doesn't mean he'd be a five-star Hydra recruit."

"You're probably right," says Nat, unconvinced.

"I'm just sick of me and my friends being his emotional punching bag," he complains. "I'm tired of him blaming me—blaming us—for everything. Ultron, the Accords, Thanos... all he had to do was pick up the goddamn phone! All he has to do was call!"

Nat laughs. "Sounds kind of ridiculous when you put it like that."

"That's because it is ridiculous!"

"So, why don't you say this to his face? You're twice his size, and pretty much all of us are on your side."

Steve shakes his head. "I beat him once, I don't need to do it again to prove a point. And I don't wanna... push him so far he turns on all of you because of me. Like the Accords, all over again."

Nat nods. "If you don't side with him, you're automatically wrong. I think we all got a taste of that."

Steve laughs, humorlessly. "I'm prepared to taste it again."

"You really think he'd turn on all of us, again?"

"If he thought it would save his family, he'd do it. If he thought that it was the right thing to do, he'd do it. Like the Sokovia Accords. He knew damn well if he signed, nothing would happen to him. He never faces any consequences for his actions."

"He hasn't lost anyone in the Snap, either," says Nat. "He started a life. He ignored those of us who were not so lucky."

"He lost Peter Parker," Steve reminds her.

Nat sighs. "Peter Parker. There's a discussion I could really get into."

"I know. Me too."

They sit in silence for a few moments.

"You know a few years back, Fury had me spying on him?"

"This was before I came out of the ice?"

"Yeah, I think."

"That's interesting." Steve sits forward.

"Yeah, he wanted me to see if he was a fit for the Avengers Initiative. Long story short, he wasn't."

"Imagine that."

"But, in the end, we needed him. We needed his brain, his tech."

Steve considers that, his eyes reflecting the wonder outside their windshield. "When he flew that nuke into the portal, I thought he finally saw it," he finally says. "Being a hero isn't glamorous. It's exhausting and frustrating and eventually you die. He was a different man that day."

There's silence again.

"He would have slept with me, had the opportunity presented itself," says Nat.

"What would Pepper have thought?"

"Probably something not very kind."

"Hmm." Steve appears to digest this information.

"That's the issue," Nat says after a few minutes. "We always need him."

Steve changes the subject abruptly. "I still get nightmares from the ice," he says. "From the wars, the fights, life in general, I guess."

"That's normal," says Nat. "I know it doesn't make it feel any better, but that's normal."

Steve is silent.

"I have nightmares, too," says Nat.

"Do you..." Steve pauses. "How do you deal with them?"

"Before?" asks Nat. "Clint, if I was on the road, and Nick and Maria. My friends. Now? I try to help. I drink. And I just... I get through it."

Steve laughs. "That's what I was afraid of. I can't get drunk." He shakes his head. "I can never help enough people, and everyone from my old life, Sam and Buck..." he trails off. "I can't help Thor where he's gone. I have you, and you have other responsibilities. And despite that, you've always been there for me. You're so... capable, in the face of hopelessness and tragedy. I had to do something. Something for Sam and Bucky. Something to prove I'm not just a bunch of muscles in a spandex suit."

"Don't let Tony get to you," says Nat. "You're pretty, too."

Steve gives a side eye and grins ear to ear. "You know what, Romanov—"

"_Arrival at Vormir imminent_," says a pleasant, androgynous voice, causing both Steve and Nat to jump. She feels the ship set downs on the surface of the planet.

"_Arrived at Vormir, base of Mount of the Veil. Safe to disembark._" The door opens onto the barren surface.

Neither Steve nor Nat moves.

"Well," says Steve.

Nat slowly unbuckles her harness. "Let's do the thing."

~~~

The climb up is less difficult than Nat expects. They'd been looking up at a sheer cliff, but around the other side of the mountain is a set of almost-stairs that is easily climbable.

"Too easy," murmurs Steve. "It's like we're walking into a trap."

"Oh shut up, Rogers," says Nat. "Let's enjoy the easy bit before the real work begins." But her own heart screams misgiving, and her senses are on high alert. They both know Steve is right.

It's a normal mountain until they reach the summit. They are greeted by two magnificent pillars, too smooth and perfect to be natural, rising out of the stone like giants and spectacular view. Nat assumes the sheer cliff must be on the other side of the mountain.

Steve nudges her, and jerks his chin towards his left. She glances over—how could she have missed it?—and sees a ghostlike figure, robed and hooded in black and hovering above the ground.

"Romanova, Natalia Alianova. Daughter of the Red Room." The figure speaks in a vaguely German accent. Nat isn't quite sure how that's possible, but it's been a day for strange things.

Beside her, she can feel Steve go rigid, like every muscle in his body is suddenly locked and loaded.

"Rogers, Steven Grant. Son of..." he trails off and turns, revealing his face.

Steve blanches.

He looks vaguely human, but it's as if his blood red face has half melted off. And that's all Nat gets to see, because Steve has thrown a magnificent punch squarely at the man's nonexistent nose.

Nat half expected it to go right through him, but Steve makes contact and the thing stumbles backwards.

It sneers. "Son of a bitch. You're still alive? And I was thinking, all this time—"

"Steve, who is this?" Nat asks.

"What are you doing here?" Steve demands. "The Tesseract destroyed you. I watch it happen! I..." Steve stops.

Nat remembers something. He gave up his life to end you, she thinks.

"S.H.E.I.L.D. is gone," says Steve, and Nat can see a sort of vicious pleasure coursing through him. "Along with Hydra. We killed Zola ourselves."

"I've been away for millennia," it says. "I'd forgotten all about that wretched little man. He lived on, eh? Followed in my footsteps?"

Nat's brain is working again, and it gives her a name. "Johann Schmidt," she says. "The Red Skull."

"It doesn't matter now," he responds. "Who I was, what I did, it was all a dream. My purpose serves something, something greater than even I. I And you are not here to fight me, are you, Captain Rogers?"

~~~

"I can't concentrate with him here." Steve is as jittery as Nat has ever seen him. He keeps casting furtive glances back toward the Red Skull, keeping tabs on his every movement as if he'll sneak up behind him and cut his throat.

"Just look at me," Nat tells him. "Just think for a second. How can we both get out of here with the stone?"

There's a few moment's silence.

"I've got something," says Steve.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously, Nat, I think I have a plan."

"And if it doesn't work?"

"Then I have a backup plan."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"Then you get the stone, and you go back without me," says Steve. "Simple."

The Red Skull floats behind them, reminding them that time is ticking them closer to their ends.

Nat shakes her head. "I think you know I can't do that. You've done enough, Steve. I've got red on my ledger—"

"Nat, no offense, but shut the fuck up," snaps Steve. Nat is shocked into silence. "Enough with this 'red ledger' bullshit. You can't blame yourself for that, okay? You were brainwashed." Steve takes a breath, and Natasha finds herself nodding.

"I just can't afford to lose another friend." Her voice is small, quiet.

"Hey." Steve pulls her into a hug. She loves Steve's hugs. "If this works, you won't have to." He pulls away and takes something out of his pocket. Nat recognizes it—it's his compass, the one with the photograph of Peggy Carter. Nat still doesn't know exactly what happened between them, but she knows he has carried that with him since 1945 and she know that he loves Peggy Carter to this day.

Something dawns on her.

Steve edges closer to the cliff's edge. He closes his eyes and whispers under his breath, and then, without warning, lets the compass slide from his fingertips and into the waiting abyss. Nat waits for a count of fourteen before hearing it shatter on the rocks far below.

She and Steve both glance hopefully at the Red Skull, but he hovers impassively to the side. No, he's not impassive—he's smug.

Nat shakes her head. It didn't work.

Steve sighs and purses his lips, as if he wasn't expecting anything different. He walks back over to Natasha, shoulders slightly slumped. She knows he'll try to put on his brave face, but that compass meant the world to him. And whether he follows it down, or doesn't, it's gone.

"I thought if I... gave up on my dream of a life with her, if I sacrificed the idea of her, then maybe..." he trails off.

"Hey." She grabs his shoulders, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "It was a good plan. Now we just need to come up with another one."

"I loved her." Steve shakes his head. "I love her, I still do, even though she's gone. I thought, maybe with this whole time travel thing, I could go back and live my life with her."

Nat hesitates. "Steve, that's..."

He laughs. "Stupid? Cowardly? Believe me, I know. I keep telling myself I deserve a break. But I know I'm the one that would have to live with the consequences, and I just... I can't do that."

"I was going to say it sounds romantic."

"I don't think it is. We talked about how life would have been if it was the two of us, before she died." Steve takes a breath. "She lived a full life, Nat. She was happy. She wouldn't have changed a thing. If I went back, I would take that all away from her. That would be selfish. Cruel."

Nat stays silent.

"I can't do that to Peggy. And I can't do that to you, or Sam or Bucky, or the rest of the team. Or myself."

"You killed the dream," says Nat.

"Yeah," murmurs Steve. "And even if I make it through this, I can't ignore it and go back anyway. I can't pretend like it never happened."

"I know." Nat puts a hand on his shoulder. She suddenly becomes aware of the Red Skull again. From the way Steve tenses up, she can tell he has noticed, too.

"We need a plan," Nat whispers.

"I have one." Steve straightens. "It was always my backup plan. I know you won't like it, but I'm going over."

"No, Steve, I can't—"

"I never really belonged, Nat," says Steve. "You probably understand that better than most. You and Buck." And that's a thousand yard stare if Nat has ever seen one.

"Steve," she says softly. "You know that's not true. I can do this."

"I know. I can, too. There's a chance—it's small, but there is a chance—that I'll get out of here alive. But if not—"

"Steve—"

"Tell Bucky and Sam that I did this for them. For you three. The universe owes me this one selfish thing. Can you do that? Please?"

Nat smiles. How is she smiling? "Of course."

"Alright." Steve takes a breath, and gives her a small grin. "I'm ready. Love you, Nat."

"Me too." Steve is running toward the cliff and—oh, God, is she really about to watch her best friend die and not do a thing about it? Can she really do that to herself, to Steve, to the rest of the Avengers who will fall apart without him, to Sam and Bucky and Thor and—

"See you on the other side, dipshit," yells Steve, saluting the Red Skull, who simply watches. Nat has to hold back her sudden, desperate laughter. Steve is weightless and beautiful and free. The transition from flying to falling is instantaneous and undetectable, and Steve is gone. Nat counts to fourteen before she hears him hit the ground.

Unable to stop herself, she runs to the edge and stares into the mist that shrouds the bottom, that shrouds the body she knows is down there. She is dangerously close to falling, to letting it all go. Steve is down there. She needs his body for a burial, she needs to see him one last time, even if it is just his corpse. The universe owes her that.

"This is the end of the line for Captain America," says the Red Skull. "Do not let it be the end for you, as well."

"Shut up, Nazi bastard," snarls Nat.

The sky opens above her, and everything is light, and then darkness.

~~~

Nat is cold and wet and weightless. She opens her eyes to a partial solar eclipse and a world without Steve Rogers.

It's a strange thought. Nat is old—a lot older than most people would believe—and somehow, Captain America has always been a part of her life. Back in the Red Room, he represented everything that was to be despised, hated, fought against. Clint showed her how wrong she was. Then there was Coulson, Fury, S.H.E.I.L.D. itself: Nat is convinced to this day that S.H.E.I.L.D. had been named after Steve. And then she'd met the guy. She knew Tony hated him, and she had expected to hate him, too, but she liked him. He respected her, he sought out her approval. They balanced each other. They'd grown close. They'd become allies, friends, confidants.

And now he was gone, all because someone very far away had decided to begin a war on innocent lives, and Steve and Nat had been too good and too stupid not to do anything. Steve had died for a rock.

And there it is—the soul stone, winking yellow up at her. She vaguely remembers Rocket telling them to avoid direct contact with an infinity stone at all costs, but it seems harmless and cool, twinkling innocently in her palm as if it did not cost the life of her best friend.

Nat screams. She screams for Steve, and for Sam. She screams at the universe, at Thanos, at Thor and Clint and Bruce and Tony Stark. She screams at Steve, for leaving her all alone on a cold and barren planet.

The universe decides that it has had enough of this pitiable creature and her shrieking. It has dealt her a rough hand, and right now, it decides to deal her a gift.

The gift is Steve's laughter. She hears it once more, through her screaming and her tears. It sounds like it's close by, but of course it's close by because it's all in her fucking head.

Nat stands and tries to collect herself, still shaking with sobs.

There is a man laying in the puddle next to hers. He is laughing, and out of his mouth comes Steve's voice.

Natasha is furious. How dare this man! He has no right to take anything from Steve, no matter how Nat longs to hear more. She is about to kick him when his laughter turns to coughing, and the coughing to more laughter. "Nat," he manages through gasps and coughs. "Natasha, I'm alive!"

"Who are you?" she demands.

"Natasha, it's Steve!" He's attempting to stand. The light catches his face, and Nat finally recognizes him—it is Steve, but is it her Steve?

"What happened?"

"It worked, my plan worked! I'm alive!"

"How?" Her voice is cold.

"I gave up Captain America. I gave up that super soldier serum and now—" Steve coughs again— "I have asthma."

"Oh, my God." It's him, it's him, Nat would know it if she was blind. She pulls him up and squeezes him as tightly as she can. He's shorter than she is. This will take some getting used to. "Steve, you're alive. You're a genius."

Steve grins, mischievous. "I know."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He sobers. "I am sorry about that. I didn't want to hurt you any more in case it didn't work. I didn't want to give you false hope. I didn't want to give myself false hope."

"Is that all?"

"I also wanted it to work, and if I told you, I wasn't sure it would have. I think it worked because I gave up someone I loved, and you thought you did, which I was hoping is what mattered in the end. Looks like I was right."

"And if you were wrong?"

Steve shrugs. "Still would have worked. Speaking of which, you have the Soul Stone, right?"

"Right here." Nat holds it up for him to see.

Steve grins. "Let's get this piece of shit back to headquarters. I hope they recognize me."

~~~

All throughout their journey back through the quantum realm, Nat can't stop staring at him. He has the same face, same features. He moves with the same purposeful grace. He smiles the same, talks the same, laughs the same. He looks more comfortable in his skin than she's ever known him to be.

They're back at headquarters too quickly. Natasha does a quick headcount—everyone made it back, safe and sound, and it looks like they have all six stones and a few minor injuries.

Everyone starts yelling at once. They'd managed to pull a near impossible plan off to perfection. Everyone wants to tell their stories. It's Thor who interrupts them, wading through his friends to get a better look at Steve.

"Steven," he says, "that is you, right?"

"Yep." Steve smiles up at him. "It's me, Thor."

Thor laughs with pure delight and picks Steve up clean off the ground. Nat winces—she knows his scoliosis must be hurting him—but Steve is all smiles.

All of them bombard him with questions, but it's Tony's voice which rises above the others. "Cap, what the fuck happened to your body?"

"I gave the serum up," says Steve, "in exchange for the Soul Stone. I thought it was better bargaining chip than my life, or Nat's."

"Huh. Well, how about that." Tony smirks down at Steve, wonder, delight, confusion all playing across his face. "Glad you made it out, man."

Steve grins. "Me, too."

~~~

After making sure that Steve is up to date with his vaccinations and assuring that he won't die anytime soon, Bruce assists Tony and Rocket with the creation of a new gauntlet. Nat and Clint catch one another up on their journeys; Clint tells her that Loki almost escaped with the Tesseract again before Clint knocked him out cold, and Nat explains in greater detail

about the cliff and Johann Schmidt.

"It's a good thing you and I didn't end up going together," says Clint, squeezing her hand. "Because one of us would have gone over, and it probably would have been me."

Nat's in a good mood, buoyed by her teammates' lightness and the success of their plan thus far. Maybe that's why she decides to forgive Clint. Maybe it's just time. "No, it would have been me, for sure," she laughs. Clint wraps her in a hug, and it's all Nat can go to blink back tears.

"Thank you." Clint's voice is muffled, and although Nat doesn't know why he's thanking her, she understands nonetheless.

Steve seems fine. Better than fine, actually. Nat keeps reminding herself that he lived an entire life before she knew him, that this new body is not, in fact, new for him. It will take everyone some getting used to, but Steve doesn't seem to mind in the slightest. They have the rest of their lives.

Even Thor seems like he's in a better mood. Less beer, more talking. Nat realizes she's missed him, even though his attention seems focused mainly on Steve.

Rocket is his usual self, and Rhodey is constantly smiling. Scott teaches them all the art of close up magic, and Nat learns the ropes before anyone else.

Nebula is the only one who seems sullen and taciturn, and since no one knew her before, no one knows if it's normal. Rocket is shut in with Tony and Bruce, and all he has to say on the matter is "She'll get over it." Whatever "it" is, he will not say.

After a few days, Tony announces that the gauntlet is ready. Nat knocks on Steve's door and opens it without waiting for a response. "You ready?"

Steve had been staring out the window, but he turns toward Nat now, grinning ear to ear. "God, yes."

~~~


End file.
